R rating shackles, not protects, teenagers

The talk as we filed out of Wednesday's opening night film at
the Melbourne International Film Festival was all about its R
rating and the wasted opportunity that the people who need to see
it most won't be able to.

2.37, the debut feature of 21-year-old Adelaide
filmmaker Murali Thalluri, is an astonishing achievement. Not least
because it is entirely non-government funded. This is a potent and
graphic portrait of the lives of seven teenagers struggling with
their transition into adulthood.

It is a confronting time of life and this is a confronting film,
a film that should be seen by the people who inform its powerful
narrative of emotional turmoil and sexual awakening - 16 and
17-year-old teenagers.

Thalluri doesn't shrink from the issues he knows are omnipresent
in the lives of people not that much younger than himself. He's
just pushed through the real-life suicide of one of his closest
friends, which led him to contemplate ending his own life, and this
drives the complex story line of sibling incest, bulimia,
homophobia, coming-out and racism, and which culminates in the
suicide of the one least-likely. Just like real life. Go into any
high school and someone will know someone who is dealing with at
least one of these issues.

It might be uncomfortable, but many parents of teenagers who saw
this film at its Australian premiere this week felt a compelling
need to share it with their children. Which is what makes its R
rating so inappropriate. It should be rated MA.

Just like last year's controversial inclusion, Gregg Araki's
compellingly beautiful and R-rated Mysterious Skin, which
explores the sexual abuse of two under-age boys by their baseball
coach, the audience that should see 2.37 will be denied
the chance.

2.37 should be screened to year 11 and 12 students in
every high school , adult supervised, with questions and answers to
follow. More than that, 2.37 is the perfect catalyst for a
re-assessment of what constitutes R-ratings on films that address
under-18 issues. Pretending that life-defining events and
life-threatening challenges are not happening to people under 18 by
restricting access to information and healthy discussion about them
is not only a nonsense, it is irresponsible.

The only saving grace about the film's R-rating is that at least
the Attorney-General isn't trying to ban it, as he did with
Mysterious Skin.

In the 12 months since the Mysterious Skin furore, the
policy and administration functions of the Office of Film and
Literature Classification have been quietly rolled into the
Attorney-General's Department.

The official line from both parties when this was implemented in
February was business as usual, but in light of Philip Ruddock's
chagrin this week over the Classification Review Board's decision
to ban only two of eight so-called hate books he submitted,
questions must surely be asked about how long the arms-length
operations of the Classification Board and the Attorney-General's
Department can viably coexist.

It is worth noting that the two books banned from release this
week - Defence of the Muslim Lands and Join the
Caravan - had originally been given the OK by the
Classification Board, but were found to fall short of anti-terror
guidelines only after the Attorney-General appealed. Isn't it just
a little bit weird that Ruddock can mount a personal challenge to a
decision by a federal agency that is ostensibly under his
responsibility?

Isn't it also a massive test of the Classification Board's
independent mettle?

Even the state attorneys-general this week caved to their
federal colleague's enthusiasm for a review of classification
guidelines.

Remember, too, that Ruddock would prefer to ban programs such as
Big Brother than encourage open debate about changing
sexual and social mores, which is what the now notorious
turkey-slap incident might have done.

Instead of reminding young women that humiliating submission
probably isn't the ideal way to get a bloke to like you, and
reminding young men that slapping a woman across the face with your
penis isn't everyone's idea of a good time, the turkey-slap became
part of the Conservative Crusades.

Like the issues addressed in Murali Thalluri's film, this is
real life. And I'm yet to be convinced of the virtues of
prohibition.

2.37 is a vital coming-of-age film that validates the
troubled teenager in us all. Lets hope it is seen by as many as
possible.